2025/01/13

Daniela Rus - Wikipedia

Daniela Rus - Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Daniela Rus
Born1962 or 1963 (age 61–62)
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma materUniversity of Iowa (BS)
Cornell University (MS, PhD)
AwardsIEEE Edison Medal (2025)
NAS member (2024)
AAAS member (2017)
NAE member (2015)
MacArthur fellow (2002)
IEEE fellow (2009)
AAAI fellow (2009)
ACM Fellow (2015)
Scientific career
FieldsRobotics; AI; Computer Science
InstitutionsDartmouth College;
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
ThesisFine motion planning for dexterous manipulation (1992)
Doctoral advisorJohn Hopcroft
Doctoral studentsCynthia Sung

Daniela L. Rus (born 1962 or 1963)[1] is a Romanian-American computer scientist. She serves as director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

She is the author of the books Computing the Future, The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots, and The Mind's Mirror: Risk and Reward in the Age of AI.

Biography

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Early life and education

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Daniela L. Rus was born in Romania before immigrating to the United States with her parents. Her father, Teodor Rus, is an emeritus professor of computer science at the University of Iowa. Her mother Elena Rus is a physicist.

Rus received a Bachelor of Science with majors in computer science and mathematics from the University of Iowa in 1985.[2] She received a Master of Science in computer science in 1990 and a Doctor of Philosophy in computer science in 1993, both from Cornell University.[3][2] Her doctoral advisor was John Hopcroft, and her doctoral dissertation was titled "Fine motion planning for dexterous manipulation".[4]

Career

[edit]

Rus started her academic career as a professor in the Computer Science Department at Dartmouth College before moving to MIT in 2004. Since 2012 she has served as Director of MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), which – with more than 125 faculty and 1700+ members – is the university's largest interdepartmental research lab.

As director of CSAIL, she launched a number of research programs and initiatives, including the AI Accelerator program, Toyota-CSAIL Joint Research Center,[5] Communities of Research (CoR), a postdoctoral program called METEOR, Future of Data Trust and Privacy, Machine Learning Applications, Fintech, Cybersecurity. As head of CSAIL's Distributed Robotics Lab, Rus focuses her research on the science and engineering of autonomy, with the goal of developing systems that seamlessly integrate into people's lives to support them with cognitive and physical tasks.

Organizations

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Rus is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and a fellow of ACM, AAAI, and IEEE. She was also the recipient of an NSF Career award and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation fellowship, and of the 2002 MacArthur Fellowship.[6]

Research

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Rus has published an extensive collection of research articles that span the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and computational design.

In her work Rus has sought to expand the notion of what a robot can be, exploring such topics as soft robotics, self-reconfigurable modular robots, swarm robotics, and 3D printing. Her research approaches the study of the science and engineering of autonomy as integrated hardware-software, or body-brain systems.[7] She has said that she views the body of the robot as critical in "defining the range of capabilities of the robot," and the brain critical in "enabling the body to deliver on its capabilities."[8]

To this end, she has developed a range of algorithms for computation design and fabrication of robots, for increasing the learning capabilities of machines in safety-critical applications, and for coordinating teams of machines and people. In addition to contributing fundamentally to the design, control, planning, and learning for agents, Rus also considered what is necessary for robots to be deployed in the world. One example is her project to develop self-driving vehicles.

She has also spoken and written widely about larger topics in technology, like the role of robotics[9] and AI[10] in the future of work, AI for Good, and computational sustainability.

Rus has also been active in entrepreneurship. She co-founded the companies LiquidAI, ThemisAI, Venti Technologies, and The Routing Company.

Rus is also involved in corporate governance. In March 2023, logistics company Symbotic appointed her to its board of directors.[11] In October 2023, AI SaaS company SymphonyAI appointed her to its board of directors, where she still serves as of July 2024.[12]

Robotics

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Rus has contributed some of the first multi-robot system algorithms with performance guarantees in distributed robotics, by introducing a control-theoretic optimization approach for adaptive decentralized coordination.[13] Key to these results is the tight coupling between perception, control, and communication. The control algorithms are decentralized, adaptive, and provably stable.

Her group has developed self-configuring modular robots that can alter their physical structures to perform different tasks. This includes sets of robotic cubes that use angular movement to assemble into different formations,[14] and magnet-controlled robots that can walk, sail and glide using different dissolvable exoskeletons.[15] She has also worked on algorithms for robots to fly in swarms,[16] and for boats to autonomously navigate the canals of Amsterdam & self-assemble as floating structures.[17]

Rus was an early contributor to the field of soft robotics, which some researchers believe has the potential to outperform traditional hard-bodied robotics in a range of human environments.[18] Her work has introduced self-contained autonomous robotic systems such as an underwater "fish" used for ocean exploration[19] and dexterous hands that can grasp a range of different objects.[20] Rus has created inexpensive designs and fabrication techniques for a range of silicon-based robots and 3D-printable robots,[21] with the goal of making it easier for non-experts to make their own.

Her projects have often drawn inspiration from nature, including the robotic fish and a trunk-like robot imbued with touch sensors.[22] She has also explored the potential of extremely small-scale robots, like an ingestible origami robot[23] that could unfold in a person's stomach to patch wounds. Other work has revolved around robots for a range of logistics environments, including one that can disinfect a warehouse floor in 30 minutes.[24]

Machine learning

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Rus and her team are trying to address some of the key challenges with today's methods for machine learning, including data quality and bias, explainability, generalizability, and sustainability. She is working on a new class of machine learning models that she calls "liquid networks" that can more accurately estimate uncertainty,[25] better understand the cause-and-effect of tasks,[26] and even that can continuously adapt to new data inputs[27] rather than only learning during the training phase. Rus' research has also involved developing machine learning systems for a range of use cases and industries, including for autonomous technologies for vehicles on land, in the air and at sea. She has worked on algorithms to improve autonomous driving in difficult road conditions, from country roads[28] to snowy weather,[29] and also released an open-source simulation engine that researchers can use to test their algorithms for autonomous vehicles.

Human/robot interaction

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Many of the Distributed Robotics Lab's projects have focused on enabling smoother and more natural interaction and collaboration between humans and robots. Rus has created feedback systems that allow human users to subconsciously communicate through brainwave activity whether a robot has made a mistake in manufacturing environments.[30] Using wearable body sensors, she has developed systems that enable users to more smoothly control drones[31] and work with to lift and transport goods.[32]

Her group has also worked on projects geared towards helping the physically disabled. They have collaborated with the Andrea Bocelli Foundation to create wearable systems[33] to help guide the visually impaired, as well as a "smart glove" that uses machine learning to interpret sign language.[34]

Computational design and fabrication

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In recent years Rus has worked with MIT colleague Wojciech Matusik to create methods for 3D-printing robots and other functional objects, often made out of multiple different types of material. She has 3D-printed soft robots with embedded electronics,[35] items with tunable mechanical properties,[36] and even "smart gloves" that could help with grasping tasks for people with motor-coordination issues.[37] Her group has developed methods for 3D-printing materials to sense how they are moving and interacting with their environment, which could be used to create soft robots that have some sort of understanding of their own posture and movements.

Awards

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In 2017, Rus was included in Forbes "Incredible Women Advancing A.I. Research" list.[38]

Rus was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2015 for contributions to distributed robotic systems.

A select list of her awards include:

Books

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  • Daniela Rus with Adam Conner-Simons, Computing the Future: A Decade of Innovation at MIT CSAIL, Cambridge, MIT Press, 2023, ISBN 979-8-218-27291-3.
  • Daniela Rus and Gregory Mone, The Heart and the Chip: Our Bright Future with Robots, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2024, ISBN 978-1-324-05023-0.
  • Daniela Rus and Gregory Mone, The Mind's Mirror: Risk and Reward in the Age of AI, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 2024, ISBN 978-1-324-07932-3.

Controversy

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Rus and MIT CSAIL have been accused of complicity in Israel's Genocide on Gaza due to ongoing research projects sponsored by the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMOD). IMOD-sponsored projects include the development of algorithms with applications in "multirobot security defense and surveillance," "city-scale observation systems," and teaching small, unmanned vehicles, such as drones, to track and pursue targets with increase autonomy.[55][56][57][58][59] In response, there has been considerable pushback from the Cambridge and MIT community.[60]

Notably, Israel has used unmanned quadcopter drones mounted with guns to target Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.[61]

References

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  1. ^ Mone, Gregory (24 October 2017). "Building Tomorrow's Robots". MIT Technology Review.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b "Daniela L. Rus". people.csail.mit.edu. Retrieved 9 October 2024.
  3. ^ "Daniela Rus Named to White House Science Council | Department of Computer Science". www.cs.cornell.edu. Retrieved 9 October 2024.
  4. ^ Daniela Rus at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  5. ^ "Toyota-CSAIL Joint Research Center". mit.edu.
  6. ^ Barlow, Rich (28 December 2003). "Mother of Invention". Boston Globe Magazine. Retrieved 20 February 2015.
  7. ^ "Unleashing Your Inner Maker" (PDF). stevens.edu.
  8. ^ "Remarkable science: Exploring our AI and robot-supported future". wbur.org. 24 May 2022.
  9. ^ "Rise of the robots: are you ready?". Financial Times. 7 March 2018.
  10. ^ "Research brief:Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work" (PDF). mit.edu.
  11. ^ [1]
  12. ^ "Article brief:Enterprise AI Leader SymphonyAI Appoints AI and Robotics Luminary Daniela Rus to Its Board". prenewswire.com.
  13. ^ Schwager, Mac; Rus, Daniela; Slotine, Jean-Jacques (2009). "Decentralized, Adaptive Coverage Control for Networked Robots". The International Journal of Robotics Research. 28 (3): 357–375. doi:10.1177/0278364908100177. S2CID 2045442.
  14. ^ "Robot blocks leap, roll and climb to work together". BBC News.
  15. ^ "New exoskeletons turn robots into 'superheroes'". bbc.com. 4 October 2017.
  16. ^ "MIT develops drone swarms that can drive". ZDNet.
  17. ^ Sterling, Toby (27 October 2021). "Self-driving "Roboats" ready for testing on Amsterdam's canals". reuters.com.
  18. ^ "Why 'soft robots' have NASA, doctors, and tech whizzes so excited". fortune.com.
  19. ^ Klein, Joanna (21 March 2018). "Robotic Fish to Keep a Fishy Eye on the Health of the Oceans". The New York Times.
  20. ^ "MIT Develops Ionogel Soft Robot Hand". IEEE. 12 April 2019.
  21. ^ "MIT researchers are now 3D printing robots that can walk on their own". washingtonpost.com.
  22. ^ "MIT showcases soft robotic sensors made from flexible off-the-shelf materials/". techcrunch.com. 13 February 2020.
  23. ^ "The Pill Robot Is Coming/". bloomberg.com.
  24. ^ "MIT-designed robot can disinfect a warehouse floor in 30 minutes – and could one day be employed in grocery stores and schools/". cnn.com. 4 July 2020.
  25. ^ "A neural network learns when it should not be trusted". scitechdaily.com. 22 November 2020.
  26. ^ "These neural networks know what they're doing". mit.edu. 14 October 2021.
  27. ^ "MIT researchers develop a new liquid neural network that's better at adapting to new information/". techcrunch.com. 28 January 2021.
  28. ^ "This self-driving car relies on spinning lasers to navigate down rural roads/". popsci.com. 16 May 2018.
  29. ^ "To Help Self-Driving Cars Navigate the Snow, Researchers Are Looking Underground". popularmechanics.com. 28 February 2020.
  30. ^ "Mind-Reading Robot Can Tell From Your Brainwaves When It's Made A Mistake". forbes.com.
  31. ^ "MIT muscle-control system for drones lets a pilot use gestures for accurate and specific navigation/". techcrunch.com. 27 April 2020.
  32. ^ "MIT's new robot takes orders from your muscles/". popsci.com. 23 May 2019.
  33. ^ "Blind Opera Superstar Andrea Bocelli Seeks High-Tech Vision At MIT/". wbur.org. 6 December 2013.
  34. ^ "ActionNet: A Multimodal Dataset for Human Activities Using Wearable Sensors in a Kitchen Environment/". csail.mit.edu.
  35. ^ "3D printer produces robot that gets up and walks away". cbsnews.com. 6 April 2016.
  36. ^ "New programmable 3D printed materials can sense their own movements". tctmagazine.com. 12 August 2022.
  37. ^ "These banana fingers could improve robotic wearables". mashable.com. 6 May 2022.
  38. ^ Yao, Mariya. "Meet These Incredible Women Advancing A.I. Research". Forbes. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  39. ^ [2]
  40. ^ [3]
  41. ^ "National Academy of Sciences Elects Members and International Members". www.nasonline.org. 30 April 2024. Retrieved 12 May 2024.
  42. ^ [4]
  43. ^ [5]
  44. ^ "Daniela Rus Co-Founder, Liquid AI and Director of CSAIL, MIT". The Boston Globe.
  45. ^ "IEEE Robotics and Automation Award Recipients" (PDF). IEEE. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 December 2021.
  46. ^ "Schmidt Futures Launches AI2050 to Protect Our Human Future in the Age of Artificial Intelligence". schmidtfutures.com. 16 February 2022.
  47. ^ "#45:Daniela Rus Deputy Dean of Research and Director of CSAIL, MIT". bostonglobe.com.
  48. ^ "Top 10 women AI leaders". aimagazine.com. 19 March 2021.
  49. ^ "Top 100 women in technology, March 2021". technologymagazine.com.
  50. ^ "Professor Daniela Rus named to White House science council". 21 April 2020.
  51. ^ "IJCAI award winners". ijcai20.org.
  52. ^ "STEM is in my DNA: Innovation Catalyst Award Recipient, Daniela Rus". masstlc.org. 28 October 2019.
  53. ^ "IEEE Pioneer in Robotics and Automation Award". ieee-ras.org.
  54. ^ "2017 Engelberger Award Winner: Dr. Daniela Rus". youtube.com. 21 June 2017.
  55. ^ "Despite censorship and intimidation we continue to demand: no more research for genocide at MIT". Mondoweiss. 21 December 2024. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  56. ^ Guo, Hongliang; Liu, Zhaokai; Shi, Rui; Yau, Wei-Yun; Rus, Daniela (1 August 2023). "Cross-Entropy Regularized Policy Gradient for Multirobot Nonadversarial Moving Target Search". Trans. Rob. 39 (4): 2569–2584. doi:10.1109/TRO.2023.3263459. ISSN 1552-3098.
  57. ^ Guo, Hongliang; Kang, Qi; Yau, Wei-Yun; Ang, Marcelo H.; Rus, Daniela (2023). "EM-Patroller: Entropy Maximized Multi-Robot Patrolling With Steady State Distribution Approximation". IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. 8 (9): 5712–5719. doi:10.1109/LRA.2023.3300245. Archived from the original on 20 July 2024. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  58. ^ Maalouf, Alaa; Gurfinkel, Yotam; Diker, Barak; Gal, Oren; Rus, Daniela; Feldman, Dan (2023). Deep Learning on Home Drone: Searching for the Optimal Architecture. pp. 8208–8215. doi:10.1109/ICRA48891.2023.10160827. ISBN 979-8-3503-2365-8. Archived from the original on 21 December 2024. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  59. ^ Maalouf, Alaa; Jadhav, Ninad; Jatavallabhula, Krishna Murthy; Chahine, Makram; Vogt, Daniel M.; Wood, Robert J.; Torralba, Antonio; Rus, Daniela (2024). "Follow Anything: Open-Set Detection, Tracking, and Following in Real-Time". IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters. 9 (4): 3283–3290. doi:10.1109/LRA.2024.3366013. Archived from the original on 24 June 2024. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  60. ^ "MIT IMOD Sponsorships – summary (public)". Google Docs. Retrieved 23 December 2024.
  61. ^ Lonsdorf, Kat (26 November 2024). "Eyewitnesses in Gaza say Israel is using sniper drones to shoot Palestinians". National Public Radio.
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2025/01/05

Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction : Garza, Erica: Amazon.com.au: Books

Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction : Garza, Erica: Amazon.com.au: Books

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Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction  2018
by Erica Garza (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 519

A courageous account of one woman’s unflinching and ultimately hopeful journey through sex and porn addiction.

A fixation on porn and orgasm, strings of failed relationships and serial hook-ups with strangers, inevitable blackouts to blunt the shame – these are not things we often hear women share publicly, and not with the candor, eloquence and introspection Erica Garza brings to Getting Off.

What sets this courageous and riveting account apart from your typical misery memoir is the absence of any precipitating trauma beyond the garden variety of hurt we’ve all had to endure in simply becoming a person ― reckoning with family, learning to be social, integrating what it means to be sexual. Whatever tenor of violence or abuse Erica’s life took on through her behavior was of her own making, fueled by fear, guilt, self-loathing, self-pity, loneliness, and the hopelessness those feelings brought on as she runs from one side of the world to the other in an effort to break her habits —from East Los Angeles to Hawaii and Southeast Asia, through the brothels of Bangkok and the yoga studios of Bali to disappointing stabs at therapy and twelve-steps back home.

In these remarkable pages, Garza draws an evocative, studied portrait of the anxiety that fuels her obsessions, as well as the exhilaration and hope she begins to feel when she suspects she might be free of them. And yet there is no false or prepackaged sense of redemption here. Even her relationship with the man she will ultimately marry seems credibly, painfully rocky as it finds its legs with several false starts. Erica’s increasing sense of self-acceptance and peace by journey’s end feels utterly earned, and absent of recovery platitudes.

In exploring the cultural taboos surrounding sex and porn from a female perspective, Garza offers a brave and necessary voice to our evolving conversations about addiction and the impact that Internet culture has had on us all.

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Review
PRAISE FOR GETTING OFF BY ERICA GARZA:

“The memoir shines light on the lonely (albeit impressively multi-orgasmic) world of a woman who binges not on food or pills, but on hookups and 'getting off'…her prose is appealingly no-frills and accessible. She writes in the style of one who knows better than to linger too long on the eroticism of her memories—one who has learned the hard way how crucial it is to keep the dangerous rushes of euphoric recall in check…In reading Garza’s insight into her own experiences, we better understand ourselves…the strong final chapters, sublimely set in Southeast Asia, are both inspirational and, dare I say it, still pretty kinky.” —New York Times Book Review

"Erica Garza has written a riveting, can't-look-away memoir of a life lived hard-core...In an era when predatory male sexual behavior has finally become a topic of urgent national discourse...Getting Off makes for a wild, timely read."—Elle Magazine

"Garza frankly and unflinchingly chronicles these experiences...Garza’s memoir is the rare sex addiction narrative from a female perspective, and a profoundly genuine, gripping story that any reader can appreciate."—Vice

“Accessible and intimate; her stories relatable for anyone who has ever felt 'less than,' who has attempted (unsuccessfully) to fill the loneliness of life…a heartbreaking and insightful read, a candid reminder that recovery is rarely a straightforward journey…But it's hopeful, too—Garza is unflinchingly honest and introspective about her obsessions and how she found a path out of them. This is a necessary book that adds an important voice to a much-needed conversation.”—Shondaland.com

“Erica Garza’s Getting Off: One Woman’s Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction is like Belle de Jour if Séverine was a real woman writing in the 21st century and exploring her desires before she even had the chance to become a bored housewife...That Garza’s memoir ends with satisfying sex, sensuality, and self-acceptance is triumphant, but not because her prior sex life seems so licentious; there’s plenty she doesn’t do. Rather, the compelling part of Garza’s story is that recovery entails the acceptance of her libido and refusal of shame. In a world that still fears female sexuality and buys into the dichotomy of the Madonna-whore complex, Getting Off is doing crucial work...Garza is admirably bold, laying everything bare via her chosen genre...If we care about the sexual health of our young people, we might encourage them to read Getting Off." —Los Angeles Review of Books

“For those of us whose understanding of sex addiction is relegated to a vague malady celebrities blame when they’re caught with the nanny, Garza offers a sobering antidote...This confessional memoir is peppered with statistics about porn use and sex addiction, and Garza’s pull-no punches style will twinge the sympathies of even the most prudish.” —Booklist

“[A] bracing chronicle of erotic dependency...exquisitely visceral and written with genuine emotion...A provocative sojourn through the wilderness of sexual addiction.” —Kirkus Reviews

“[An] unflinching debut…an honest voice to sufferers of sex addiction.” —Publishers Weekly

"For those of us whose understanding of sex addiction is relegated to a vague malady celebrities blame when they’re caught with the nanny, Garza offers a sobering antidote...This confessional memoir is peppered with statistics about porn use and sex addiction, and Garza’s pull-no punches style will twinge the sympathies of even the most prudish."—Booklist

"Often, sex addiction is associated with the poor behavior of predatory men. Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey claimed they were addicted to sex. In Getting Off, Erica Garza offers an important correction to that public narrative by telling her own story."—Bitch Media

"Erica Garza’s first memoir tracks her lifelong struggle with sex addiction, from 'strings of failed relationships and serial hook-ups with strangers, inevitable blackouts to blunt the shame,' shedding light on a very real dependency that women are rarely empowered to speak about." —Glam.com

“What makes the book tick is that Garza’s ability and talent as a storyteller. She’s a well-known essayist on this subject, and she is able to mine the depths of magic and mystery that makes sex what it is....Painfully open and vulnerable. This memoir succeeds as the best memoirs do.” —New York Journal of Books

"Fascinating...Garza takes the reader through a very intimate journey of self-discovery and acceptance."—Roar

“You might expect Erica Garza’s memoir to be overly salacious. But as you dig in…you’ll find it to be fiercely dynamic and courageous.” —HelloGiggles

“Erica Garza’s Getting Off, is an unvarnished portrait of one the most difficult rooms to describe in the dark house of addiction; it is also a frank account of leaving. Garza does not make the escape look easy, nor does she give credit to one way out, but it is clear that the telling is an important part. For her. For all of us. As she describes so beautifully in these pages, it starts with pressing the bruise, locating the shame, and letting it go.” —Bill Clegg, bestselling author of Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man: A Memoir and Did You Ever Have a Family: A Novel

“In simple, elegant prose and with courageous honesty, Erica Garza traces the journey every girl must make toward womanhood: validating her own perceptions, admitting her own vulnerabilities and faults, trying and stumbling, learning to love and forgive herself and others. Yet somehow, Garza has turned this universal story into a page-turner. I read it in one sitting; I think you will too.” —Robin Rinaldi, author of The Wild Oats Project

“To speak about women’s sexual desire as a singular thing, disconnected from male desire, is a transgressive and novel act. Add the ways Erica Garza admits to using her own pleasure to avoid genuine connection, and you practically have a revolution between these covers. With grace, humility, and lyricism, Erica Garza captures a rarely understood experience, and begins a different, badly needed discussion about women, sex, and addiction.” —Kerry Cohen, author of Loose Girl, A Memoir of Promiscuity
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2025/01/04

Away From Home: Letters to My Family - Carter, Lillian

Away From Home: Letters to My Family - Carter, Lillian, Spann, Gloria Carter | 9781416576600 | Amazon.com.au | Books








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Away From Home: Letters to My Family Paperback – 1 May 2008
by Lillian Carter (Author), Gloria Carter Spann (Author)
5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 10


Lillian Carter was one of the most loved and admired women in the country. Mother of a president, she was a strong, resolutely independent woman with a mind of her own, determined to bypass the barriers of age and sex.

In these letters to her daughter Gloria that she wrote during her two-year stay in India as a Peace Corps volunteer, we hear the voice of a courageous woman with a sense of humor and an abiding integrity as well as curiosity, who welcomed new customs and fresh faces. Mrs. Carter discovers a determination that brings her peace within herself. And her readers take a daily walk with an extraordinary woman.

Mrs. Carter's letters reveal the ideals, commitment, and emotions of that early generation of Peace Corps volunteers. They are a powerful demonstration of why Jimmy Carter acknowledges the inspiration he drew from his mother, to follow her example.


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Bill Hepburn

5.0 out of 5 stars What a wonderful collection of letters that both capture Miss Lillian's experiences ...Reviewed in the United States on 11 March 2015
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What a wonderful collection of letters that both capture Miss Lillian's experiences and give great insight into who she was as a person. I was in India as a Peace Corps volunteer from 1964 to 1966 and could relate to much of what she described. I remember many of the people and places from her book. I found it fascinating and surprising that she really lived the same as most volunteers in India during those years. I am sorry that our paths never crossed because I am sure I would have enjoyed meeting her in person.

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Amazon Customer

5.0 out of 5 stars funny, an a nostalgic trip back to the 60'sReviewed in the United States on 22 March 2015
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Anyone who thinks they are too old to get involved should read this book. Lillian Carter took a big challenge at age 67 and ran with it. When I think my age is an obstacle, I just think of Lillian Carter's adventure. Her letters are inspiring, funny, an a nostalgic trip back to the 60's.

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P. Sharpe

5.0 out of 5 stars If you enjoyed "A Remarkable Mother" by Miss Lillian's sonReviewed in the United States on 30 January 2015
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If you enjoyed "A Remarkable Mother" by Miss Lillian's son, Jimmy Carter, this volume will fill you in on the hardships and accomplishments of Miss Lillian's two years in India as a Peace Corps volunteer. It wasn't easy, and these letters tell her story.

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Carol Swarbrick Dries

5.0 out of 5 stars Miss Lillian in Service - to the country and humanity!Reviewed in the United States on 23 June 2017
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Candid reactions and real adventures for this "First Mother" in the Peace Corps. Intimate thoughts reveal a woman who spent her lifetime in service, while being quite a character!

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nt

5.0 out of 5 stars Good readReviewed in the United States on 24 August 2013
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Read her son Jimmy's book about her, which lead me to this one. What a remarkable lady. Too bad there aren't more like her.

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President Carter on Miss Lillian, A Remarkable Mother





President Jimmy Carter on Miss Lillian, A Remarkable Mother




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2,446 views Feb 20, 2023President Jimmy Carter speaks to Rich Fahle of Borders about A Remarkable Mother, President Carter's loving, admiring, wry homage to Miss Lillian Carter, who championed the underdog always, even when her son was president. Jimmy Carter's mother emerges from this portrait as redoubtable, generous, and forward-looking. He ascribes to her the inspiration for his own life's work of commitment and fait


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Transcript




foreign
[Music]
Jimmy Carter who is the author of a
brand new book called The remarkable
mother thank you so much for joining us
today President Carter I'm delighted to
be with you and with borders
Miss Lillian was such an enigmatic
figure such an extraordinary woman in
the book on its face is definitely a
biography a story about an extraordinary
woman and her family
this is also a story about a woman who
redefined herself and who who found a
way to live adventurously all throughout
her life but especially in her in her
middle life well mama was an indomitable
character and she tried to devote every
day of her life to doing exciting and
interesting and adventurous and
unpredictable and gratifying things and
she was strong-willed enough not to
worry about public criticism
or even the loss of some friends and she
would tackle the most controversial and
important uh events of problems in
society
in in a incredible fashion uh for
instance she saw when I was a little
child
in an isolated community that we only
had black neighbors no white neighbors
that the ravages of racial segregation
that had been in place then for almost
100 years should be ended and so she
just set out on her own to disavow any
legal constraints
even though the Supreme Court of the
United States and the Congress and all
the churches and all the schools said
racial segregation is the law of a land
she said it doesn't apply to me and that
was especially difficult in the South oh
yeah we were in the deepest part of this
of a deep south and so she did that and
that was a characteristic of a life
all the way through until she was 70
years old she was in the Peace Corps in
India still dealing with disadvantaged
people who were Untouchables mostly
suffering from leprosy and so forth she
was over there once again giving
everything she had as a registered nurse
to try to help those people have a
better life yeah and the first part of
the book is really a story of a small
town life frankly it's your mother
Lillian who met Earl and and they're
coming together and they're starting a
family and your father Earl was a strong
character as well but but your mom
really found a really strong voice as a
wife and as a mother at a time when you
said that southern matriarch or that
strong female matrac was such an
integral part of that sort of post-civil
War era it was because so many of the
men were killed during the Civil War so
that meant that that widows survived and
they had to be head of the family so
there was a kind of a custom then even
much later when I came along not to
exalt women who were independent and and
strong-willed and in some ways dominant
so it was a special characteristic of
some southern women mother
continued that her her parents knew the
Reconstruction days and they remembered
what happened after the Civil War my
grandfather her father talked about it a
lot but mother inherited some of that
privilege I would guess for a southern
woman to be exceptionally strong
and she was
blessed in many ways to be a registered
nurse because being a part of the
medical profession gave her some degree
of ability to withstand to be impervious
to condemnation because she reached out
to blacks and treated them as equals all
her life
you're talking the book about the
storytelling that you'd have in front of
the fire and and how important books
were to your family and to your mother
especially she read constantly in fact
she started a habit which my wife and I
still haven't and I think all my Ken
folks have of reading it at the table
because she didn't want to waste those
precious hours just eating food so she
would read at the table and my data
didn't much approve but she would get
permission from my daddy for us children
also to read yeah at the table so my
wife and I do the same and our children
did which precipitated a lot of
arguments or debates while we're eating
meals so we would read some provocative
thing in a newspaper or a magazine or a
book and then we start an arguing about
it so we debated it with each other and
that's one thing that kind of introduced
us to the political world
you say too in the book that when you
were reading your mother said everything
was cool you didn't have to be working
or doing anything else so you all read a
lot you know we did that's true my daddy
was a very Stern disciplinarian when
Daddy gave a command or laid down a rule
uh we were expected to follow it and if
we didn't we were severely punished
which was a custom in those days I got
five
major whippings while I was growing up
and I remember all of them a mother
would would see me and all my sisters
commit some so-called crime
while during the day and so she would
hasten to give us a very mild punishment
so when my daddy came home later in the
day she would say Jimmy did so and so
but Earl I've already punished him she
did not punish himself she's trying to
protect us from my daddy absolutely well
in 1953 though your dad passed away
again and and that marked a changing
point in your mother's life and in mind
yes you came back to playing after my
daddy died and so from 50 1953 on and I
never knew but one parent I was and I
was 16 years old when I left home I was
in the Navy about 12 years so mother
when I was even an adult a young adult
an actionable officer she really helped
shape shape my life but she did Blossom
forth after your father died obviously
she's just starting to now feel her way
into this new life she decides to spend
eight years as this fraternity house
mother with a bunch of raucous college
kids that's true that's just uh an
unusual choice right there you must have
known right at that moment that your
mother was going to take A New Path well
I did but it was well off enough my dad
left the money enough so she could buy a
new automobile every two years and she
bought a Cadillac so she would take her
new Cadillac over and turn it over to
those boys 96 of them right to use any
way they wanted to and then when they
tore it up or wore it out she would get
a new one and so she really treated all
of those boys as her own children I used
to accuse her of hearing more about them
than she did her real children but if
they got in trouble of any kind instead
of going to their parents to confess
that their girlfriend was pregnant or
they had violated the university rules
or got caught cheating on an exam they
would come to my mother and she was
there
you know in real term she was not only
their house mother she was she acted as
their loving parent yeah and you say in
the book that for for to the end of her
life some of these Kappa Alpha brothers
would come seek out Miss Lillian and
find her just to say hello and exactly
reconnect that's a wonderful and I was
always surprised to say they were still
out of jail yeah but they did quite well
absolutely well she had a good effect
you know um your mother was uh was had a
fun Spirit too to her she was a huge
baseball fan was at the very first
baseball game of Jackie Robinson played
in yeah she and my father went on One
Vacation a year
it was after we laid by our crop that
means we we got Pastor Paul we had to
plow the crop and before harvest season
so they had time off and they would go
each year for two weeks to a baseball
town to St Louis or to Cincinnati or to
Chicago or to Boston New York or
Philadelphia somewhere wherever they had
major baseball and they would stay two
weeks and at that time the teams weren't
moving around the nation like I do now
with airplanes right so they stayed at
home for a good while and they didn't
have any night games so they could watch
maybe a doubleheader baseball game and
then be free that evening to go out on
the town so that was a very delightful
vacation and she knew about the upcoming
prowess of Jackie Robinson he was from
Georgia by the way not too far from my
hometown so she and my daddy were there
the first game he played for the
Brooklyn Dodgers and and so she adopted
the Brooklyn Dodgers as her fan as her
team the rest of her life so when uh Ted
Turner bought the Braves I would quite
often sit in Ted Turner's owner's box
and my mother would go with me right
when they played the Dodgers she would
scream for the Dodgers she had one of
the most raucous voices you could hear
all over the stadium and either before
the game or afterwards every every
Dodger player would come by and give my
mother a love and a hug and a kiss and
and then of course
Tony Lasorda would come by also right
and then when I got to be president
later
my mother had Tony Lasorda's telephone
number which I'm sure he regretted and
she watched all of the Dodger games on
even on the west coast to a television
antenna and she would call her sort of
after the games and give him a piece of
her mind if he did something that she
didn't like she had a lot of interesting
experience and later she was a great
admirer of Muhammad Ali and it's hard to
remember then but he was condemned in
this country very severely
during the second World War I turned to
Vietnam War because he he was a draft
Dodger and he was also a Muslim and so
now he's looked on almost universally as
a great favorite but then he was really
condemned by many people my mother
adopted him maybe because of that so she
she abandoned me and my campaign for
running for president one time to go to
New Orleans to see him fight for the uh
for the Heavyweight Championships all
through this book you tell these
wonderful stories of your mother these
these stories of her loving all my
children and her these pro wrestling and
the Dodgers along the way your career is
growing now as you're reading this book
it was hard to tell where you were in
your career you did make some minor
references to your career and and you
could draw some of those parallels this
really is a book about your mother it
was hard to sort of discern as you read
it where you are in this book well she
played a role when necessary when I
started running for president
we had Amy who was only five years old
and so we asked Mama to do her share by
keeping Amy and after a few months so
mother got impatient with that and
decided she wanted to go on a campaign
Trail also so then we turned Amy over to
rosen's Mother also in Plains All of Us
from Planes and so mother went on the
campaign Trail and she she campaigned
actively for me five days a week every
week right for months and months and she
was so provocative
uh and attractive in her speaking way
and her irrepressible spirit that she
got me a lot of support she and Roseland
were the two secret weapons so by the
time my opponents woke up
they had already lost the election yeah
your mother was always very much into
politics I mean you talk about you know
going back before these folks but Hubert
Humphrey and then Lyndon Johnson and
Bobby Kennedy and later Andrew Young
that she sent uh some some money to when
he was an up-and-coming politician
clearly she was an active person really
engaged in politics in fact in some
cases she said that she listened to
those politicians more than you finished
then the Young when she did me and maybe
he would Humphrey as well not many
people know it but but the founder of
the Peace Corps was actually Hubert
Humphrey
uh John Kennedy got credit for it
because he happened to be president when
the legislation passed so Mama admired
Hubert Humphrey for the Peace Corps and
uh and he uh singled Mama out for
special attention while she was in India
yeah what would your mother think of
this presidential election that we're
going through right now with with Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton and John I
think he would be exhilarated
to see the possibility likelihood maybe
of a black man a white woman being
elected president
and I think she would look with favor on
John McCain because I was a Navy man he
was a Navy man he was in prison I admire
him too still peacekeeping here still
peacekeeping I think so yeah well you
I'm telling him well I tried everything
across the aisle you know Rose and I
decided when I left the White House that
we wouldn't publicly endorse
you know in any of the democratic
candidates we don't get involved
directly in the in the primary campaign
because we overseas and everything a lot
and so we we don't we won't make a a
public decision until after the primary
season's over
and we're approaching they can mention
and then we'll make a choice
well that that part about your mother
going to the Peace Corps is to me the
most inspiring part of this book mostly
because you can follow your mother
through the series of letters some of
which you put in here and Other Stories
that we heard from some of the other
participants how she evolves as a person
she had already taken steps to your
point to reach out and to give back to
the world but when she went she there
was a point where she wasn't sure she
was going to stay it was very difficult
for her she was quite disillusioned
because Mama asked to go to any place
that was poverty stricken and where the
people had dark skin
so they sent her to India and she began
to learn at the University of Chicago
right here as a matter of fact uh how to
speak Hindi she thought she was going to
New Delhi and be a nurse but Mrs Indira
Gandhi he was a prime minister of India
ordained at that time a very strict
Family Planning program so instead of
coming to New Delhi mother was sent down
near Bombay to a little village called
me Crowley and and instead of nursing
sick people she was put in charge of
imposing very strict Family Planning
regulations on those poverty-stricken
right Untouchable people but her roles
expanded while she was there and and
what's what's the most inspiring part I
think about the book is to see how your
mother began to understand that while
maybe she couldn't change the world that
those that she came in contact with she
could directly affect and she could
improve the lots of of everyone that she
touched and yeah
their stories of you sending gifts to
her and and and she passed them on other
people and she would say
this is a great I'm passing it on to
someone else and you should know that
you've made two people happy me and the
people he would literally give all of
her food away she was constantly hungry
and she would write us letters about how
hungry she was so we would send her
peanut butter you know and different
kind of can uh vegetables but she
gave it all away and and this and she
wasted away when she finally came home
uh from the Peace Corps and when we went
to meet her at the airport in Atlanta
she couldn't walk
they had to bring her out in a
wheelchair she had lost 35 pounds and
she was already thin when she went and
uh but Mama
became finally a spare time after her
normal working duties she began to help
a doctor in a local clinic and So
eventually she became so invaluable to
him that the owner of the village of Mrs
Goodrich let her transfer from family
planning to nursing so then mother took
care of lepers and others that had
terrible diseases and she was in her
glory she thought it was the most
wonderful thing that ever happened to
her well there's a picture there's a
there's a wonderful picture in this book
of your mother and a young girl a girl
that she helped teach while she was in
India this was a daughter of the
gardener in that Village who worked for
the rich folks and he would sneak
vegetables and give them to my mother so
she could cook them in her little
apartment and she didn't have any way to
repay the garden up and so uh she
decided she didn't have any money so she
decided that she would teach his little
girl six years old how to read and write
in English and get her started on an
education very few of those very poor
people had a chance to to get educated
there was a lot of illiteracy there so
she taught the little girl and and the
gardener took a photograph of my mother
sitting on a rock teaching his little
daughter two years ago we went back to
India my wife and I did to build habitat
houses we built a hundred homes and near
Bombay I picked out a place where my
mother had been in the Peace Corps and
we met the rich folks that owned the
city still the town and they brought
this little girl in to meet me in
Roseland and she was obviously now a
grown woman she had gone on to get a a
doctorate and she was a president of
University and it was the young girl
yeah same young girl and that was a kind
of impact my mother had on other people
and she probably had no idea of people
that she was touching along no she did
yeah she did
how has your mother and and all that she
did and and especially in her in her
second half of her life how has that
affected you and all the work that
you've done with the Carter Center
and with everything else Habitat for
Humanity well I don't think there's any
doubt that uh that my whole family
including me you know has been affected
by my mother including even my my
grandchildren one of whom went to the
Peace Corps because my mother had done
so
but but I think I'm not bragging about
it but you know I think I'd arrived from
my mother a sense of Human Rights
as she treated the Civil Rights Movement
when I was a child when I became
governor
and made my inaugural address she was
sitting on on the reviewing platform and
I made an announcement that I had
traveled throughout Georgia maybe more
than any other candidate and I say to
you quite frankly that the time for
racial discrimination is over
and that put me on the front cover of
Time Magazine a couple of weeks later
and when I became president she was on
the reviewing stand and I announced that
human rights would be the basic
foundation for our foreign policy and I
don't think there's any doubt that uh
those statements in my attitude were
shaped at least partially by the example
that my mother said yeah well not only
that she's now set an example through
this book uh for for women looking for
another adventure in their life I think
so anybody that that thinks that their
life is over when they get older or
anyone who's afraid of of criticism if
they do the right thing or anyone who's
searching for a way to put into
practical use their religious beliefs I
think we get a lot out of this book
because my mother set an example not
trying to set an example with just that
was the way she was
she was a Christian and uh
she didn't preach she tried to put into
practical terms her faith she worshiped
the Prince of Peace so she tried to
promote peace she believed in humility
and
and Justice and service and uh
helping people who were despised and
alienated from society reaching out to
them especially
she believed in compassion and love for
people that maybe don't even deserve to
be loved so I think in many ways she
exemplified not only what
religious Faith ought to bring into a
person's life but also what it means to
be a great American
no she did become famous when I was
president but but just on an isolated
form on a little tiny community in south
Georgia she tried to be a great American
she tried to to exemplify the moral
values that made our country great and
that's really why I wrote the book at
this late date after she has passed away
was because of some uncertainty now in
society what can I do as an individual
human being to correct the
the mistakes that Society is making and
can I do it just by myself if I'm going
to be criticized for for going contrary
to custom so I thought that my mother's
example might be helpful there was no
doubt about that I think that the people
who read this book are going to find a
role model and we're also happy here at
borders that you decided now so many
years later but still such a relevant
subject to write this book thanks so
much for joining us today President
Carter nice to meet you thank you very
much good to be with you good to be with
you too thanks
I'm from Atlanta Georgia and I am an
admirer of Jimmy Carter
um
I'm from Chicago and I'm also an admirer
of Carter I think he did great things
during his administration and it's just
great to be able to come out here and
see him and get the book signed today
I'm a big fan of his and all the things
that he has said about his mother is
pretty remarkable we have great
admiration from President Carter and
it's a it's again it's a wonderful
opportunity and this is for my mother
having a good time glad that President
Carter is here I'm very excited to be
here to meet President Carter former
President Carter to be the first
president I've ever met so this is
exciting I'm here just because my mom
really appreciates Jimmy Carter and I
thought it'd be a great Mother's Day
present and it's probably the closest
I'll ever get to a president I'm really
excited
having up to
mountains
[Music]
me to
up over the clouds
[Music]
I could see around
me
everywhere



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